The Way Things Played Out
by vapourtrailreads
Summary: [HARRY POTTER AU] He wasn't expecting anything like it, but that was how it played out, and he wouldn't change it. Rated T


A/N:

One, this is a Shadowhunters AU, set in the Harry Potter universe. Two, Kitty abounds here and there. Three, I own nothing. Four, enjoy.

 **The Way Things Played Out**

He wasn't expecting anything like it, but that was how it played out, and he wouldn't change it.

 _XXXXXXXX_

The bell rings tinnily as he walks into the shop, past the weathered door and faded purple cushion in the viewing window. It's dark, dark enough that he has to squint a little to make out the shelves of wand boxes in the narrow space, arranged by some order he doesn't understand. Truth be told, he doesn't know much about British wizarding culture, except from the books he's read. He never thought he'd ever come here, let alone study here.

But things don't always turn out the way you think.

"Tiberius Blackthorn, I presume."

He turns, and sees the wizened old man sitting on a narrow stool, long hands folded in his lap, silvery gray eyes like tarnished mirrors. "I was not expecting you. And yet… here you are."

The man - probably the shop owner - slides off his perch and comes over, a tape measure with silver intervals appearing in his hand. "Which is your wand hand?" he probes, brandishing the tape measure in front of him.

Ty extends his right hand, and the tape measure floats from Ollivander's hand and unspools itself along his arm. He wishes he'd gone with Livvy yesterday - she'd burst back into their room in the Leaky Cauldron that evening, delightedly showing him her new wand, eleven-inch alder and unicorn hair of a slightly springy flexibility. She'd been itching to try it out ever since the wand touched her skin. She probably would have, if not for the fact that they were both underage.

Ollivander leaves the enchanted tape measure to its work and starts hovering around the shelves like a moth around a candle, pulling multiple wand boxes out from seemingly random locations. Once again, he wonders how Ollivander sorts his wares.

That's when the bell tinkles.

He looks behind him. There are two figures standing in the now-open doorway. One of them he knows from the newspapers - it's Tessa Gray, the Deputy Headmistress at his new school. She has curly brown hair tied up neatly behind her head. A long silver cloak with streaks of blue flows down her shoulders.

The other one is what makes him do a double take. He must be No-Maj-born, probably first-year like him, because why else would a Hogwarts teacher accompany a student to Diagon Alley?

The boy scans the room with curious eyes, cobalt blue like the over-bright pictures in No-Maj children's storybooks. He has slightly wavy gold locks that form a messy curtain over his forehead, and a tentatively arrogant smirk sneaks onto his face as his gaze finds Ty's.

He feels his breath catch.

"Christopher Herondale."

He almost jumps out of his skin; he'd nearly forgotten that Ollivander was still in the shop. The old man hops down nimbly from a stepladder Ty hadn't noticed, his arms packed with various boxes. With a flourish he arrays them on the crooked table between them.

"You're early," Ollivander quips, eyes flicking to the woman beside him. "Theresa Gray. English oak and phoenix feather, twelve and a half inches, a little whippy?"

Tessa smiles. "It's been a long time, Mr Ollivander, but you are still sharp as ever, of course."

The corner of Ollivander's mouth perks up in a half-smile. "Thank you, Professor Gray. Please do bear with me for a while... I've got to get my young charge sorted." His eyes grow serious all of a sudden, alight with a gleam of challenge. "This may be a tricky one. Here, Mister Blackthorn," he says, proffering the first wand, "elm and dragon heartstring, thirteen inches, supple flexibility."

Ty reaches for it, but Ollivander snatches it away the next second. "Not quite right yet," he mutters as if to himself, "try this one, cedar and phoenix feather, twelve and a quarter inches, fairly bendy-"

Once again he grasps the wand, and this time he actually manages to get his fingers fitted around the handle properly before Ollivander plucks it out of his hand. "No, no, no," he hisses.

He pauses, considering, then takes a box from the very bottom of the pile. One of the first he took down. "May as well. Here you are," he proclaims, "pine wood and dragon heartstring, eleven and three quarter inches, reasonably flexible."

He can feel Christopher's eyes on him, expectant. Ty's fingers find the wand, close around it.

An unexpected warmth shoots through his arm, and white and bronze sparks spray from the end of the wand, briefly lighting up the room.

Ollivander starts clapping with slow, almost lazy movements. Ty feels strangely scrutinised under his pale gaze.

"Fitting," he murmurs. "I think you are destined for something extraordinary, Tiberius Blackthorn."

Ty pays for the wand, and turns to leave.

A pair of blue eyes catches him in his tracks, and he nearly trips over his own feet.

Christopher Herondale smiles at him, not the faintly obnoxious grin from earlier, but an earnest smile that seems to light up everything, that for some unknown reason makes a fluttery feeling open up in Ty's chest.

"I guess I'll see you at Hogwarts," says the other boy. He has an American accent - not an English accent like he would have expected. But then again, nothing turns out the way you think.

"See you," Ty says quickly, and hurries out the way he came.

 _XXXXXXXX_

His trunk may look small, but it shows its true colours once you get it off the trolley and onto the platform. Ty sticks his wand in his pocket and grabs the trunk handle with both hands, and is just starting to shuffle towards the open carriage door when a familiar voice cuts through the melody of Tchaikovsky seeping from his headphones.

"Do you need help with that?"

The flutter erupts in his chest again. He ignores it and puts down his trunk for a moment. "You're Christopher Herondale."

The boy's face breaks into a big smile, as if he's glad that Ty remembered him. "Call me Kit, won't you?" he says, extending a hand towards Ty's trunk. He slips his fingers under one edge; Ty circles and positions himself on the opposite side. "Christopher makes me feel old."

Ty rolls the word around his tongue. "Kit." It sounds like the name of a childhood toy - short and sweet. Involuntarily his facial muscles contract into a smile. "That's a nice name."

Kit lets out a fleeting laugh. "So now I've told you my name," he says. They heave the trunk onto the storage rack above the seats, and he leans back against the compartment wall, wiping his sweaty gold hair off his face. He grins tiredly at Ty, his blue eyes shimmering. "It's only fair that you tell me yours."

He feels his cheeks get warm, and immediately bows his head to hide the blush. There isn't anyone else in this compartment. That's strange.

"You know my name," he starts to say, thinking of Ollivander mentioning it in the shop, but changes his mind. "I'm Ty. Ty Blackthorn."

Kit seems a little thrown off. Ty wonders if it's because of the sudden name switch. Then his lips curve into that infinitely normal smile, and even time seems to pause to stare.

"Cute," he chuckles, just as the departure whistle sounds and the train starts to move. He holds out his hand again, this time in a greeting. "Nice to meet you, Ty."

He isn't the kind of person who enjoys physical contact. But still, he reaches out and grasps Kit's hand, remembering to shake firmly like Uncle Arthur taught him the other time.

"Nice to meet you."

 _XXXXXXXX_

The Hat put him in Ravenclaw. It's nice and all, what with the common room ceiling painted with night stars and the pale walls giving the feel of elegance and otherworldly beauty, and his housemates don't scorn at him for how he behaves, for wearing his headphones (or earphones) everywhere. Most of them are oddballs too anyway. Though he wouldn't consider himself one, but not everyone seems to think the same.

His only problem with being in Ravenclaw, however, is that his new best friend isn't.

But, Ty thinks, as he sits next to Kit at the Hufflepuff table, slicing carefully into his pancakes, it could be worse.

"Hey!" Kit snaps loudly, anger flaring up like a lighter being flicked on. He stands up so fast that the bench screeches back across the floor half a foot, eliciting squeaks from several other Hufflepuffs on the bench.

Ty looks up from his pancakes. Kit's usually fairly mild-mannered with everyone, albeit with a bit of casual sarcasm thrown in. He's never seen Kit this mad before.

One of the other Hufflepuffs stops in the middle of her conversation, brown eyes wide with surprise.

Kit braces his hands flat on the table, leaning forward. "Stop calling Ty weird," he states flatly, and a thrill of inexplicable happiness runs through Ty. "Just because someone doesn't behave the same way as you doesn't mean that they're weird or anything."

The girl's shock is almost instantly glossed over with defiance. "Yeah, well, he doesn't behave like _anyone_ else," she counters, pointing an accusing finger at Ty. "He never takes those headphones off, not even during lessons, and have you seen the things he does during break? No one goes to the lake and sits there trying to talk to the giant squid!"

Irritation flashes in him. "I don't talk to the giant squid," he says.

"Whatever," she says, dismissing him with an imperious wave of her hand. "At any rate, I don't see why you're even talking to a _weirdo_ from another house, Herondale."

Kit's silent. Ty notices his jaw working, almost imperceptibly, the muscles clenching tight as if he's trying to crush a stone in his mouth.

"So what if he's a weirdo?" Kit's eyes flash dangerously. He loops his arm around Ty's, and he glances at him, surprised at the contact. "He's my weirdo. _My_ weirdo. If you don't like it then just don't look. Out of sight, out of mind, right?" He scoops his plate and cutlery off the table, and exits the Great Hall, dragging Ty with him.

"Where are we going?" In the little space in his mind, Kit's words bounce around like rogue tennis balls. _He's my weirdo. My weirdo._

"Somewhere those idiots won't go," he grinds through his teeth. His shoulders are stiff, his footsteps echoing in the corridor with every stomp. Ty's heart gives a funny leap.

When they finally stop walking, he blinks in the sunlight, confused. "We're at the lake," he says.

Kit's smile is smug. "Exactly," he answers, sitting down on the grass next to the bank with a sigh. "That's why they're not coming here."

He thinks about Livvy, sitting at the Gryffindor table with her new friends. He hasn't spoken much to her since school started, but she seems happy here. She didn't have many friends back in Los Angeles anyway, so this school must be like a clean slate for her. Although they don't see each other much, he knows she's doing well, and that makes him happy.

If only he could say the same for himself. Still, Kit is just one person in a sea of thousands.

But a ship only needs one anchor anyway.

He smiles and sits down next to his friend.

 _XXXXXXXX_

"Did you see Herondale yesterday?"

"Merlin, it was stupid."

"What an idiot."

Ty stares at the passing crowd of students, surveying them from under his eyelids. He sneaks a glance at Kit, who has his books hugged to his chest. His eyes are closed.

"I should thank you for… yesterday," Ty says, fiddling with his wand nervously.

Kit opens his eyes suddenly, clear as glass. "Well, that's what friends are for," he replies casually, and Ty realises he's _surprised_ that he's thanking him. Kit leans his head back, and a few stray clumps of hair skid across his face, snagging on the bridge of his nose.

Ty looks out at the crowd, hearing the faint whispers of gossip. _Naive_ , they hiss as they walk past. _Stupid. Daydreamer._

"I don't like that they call you an idiot," he mumbles. Apparently Kit hears him, because his arm comes up and slings around Ty's neck.

"I don't _mind_ being an idiot," he says, and his eyes flicker. "As long as it's clear that I'm _your_ idiot."

Ty can't help it. He giggles, doubling over as the laughs start to hurt in the good way.

After a moment, so does Kit.

"Look at us," gasps Ty between breaths. "An idiot and a weirdo laughing together in the corridor."

Kit wipes tears of mirth from his eyes, still hiccuping with laughter. And slowly, the people staring at them begin to turn invisible.

 _XXXXXXXX_

He sucks in a breath of precious cold air, jerking up in bed, at the same time as the door to his room slams open.

Ravenclaw dorm is different from the other houses, at least different from Gryffindor and Hufflepuff. Each student has their own individual space. Which makes this all the more confusing, since Kit probably didn't know this, and he probably didn't know where Ty's room was either.

But there he is. Leaning on the door frame, his gold hair sweaty, plastered to his forehead, faintly glowing in the dark.

Ty runs a hand through his hair, trying to catch his own breath. He gets the same nightmare all the time. He'd thought he'd gotten used to it by now. Evidently not.

"Are you okay?" Kit asks.

He presses his hands onto his eyes. "No." He peers up at his friend. "You're not okay either, are you?"

Kit shakes his head. He comes over to sit on the edge of Ty's bed. In the dim light, his hunched figure seems so small.

"How did you know this was my room?"

"I didn't." Kit pitches over and lies down on Ty's bed, the bedclothes going up in a cloud around him. "I just had a nightmare. I'm sorry."

Ty's ears prick at the word _nightmare._ "What was it about?"

Kit glances up at him, one hand folded across his chest, the other pillowing his head, legs stretched out along the bed, crossed at the ankles. "I'll tell you mine if you tell me yours."

Ty hesitates. He hasn't told anyone about his nightmares, ever, except Livvy. But he looks at Kit, and he makes a choice.

"I saw my dad die again."

Kit sits up, his eyes full of unspeakable emotion.

Ty draws his knees up to his chest, wrapping his arms around himself. "My dad, he was an Auror for MACUSA," he says. "My mom stayed home to take care of us. All seven of us," he continues, "Mark and Helen, my dad's first two children with his first wife; my elder brother Jules; Dru and Tavvy, the youngest out of all of us; and Livvy and me.

"We were a big family, and there wasn't much to go round, but we were all happy, " he says, feeling himself slipping back into the memory of the past again, and he knows he shouldn't let himself do this, but Kit is leaning close, hanging on every word.

"Then Mom fell ill. No one knew what she'd gotten, but Livvy and I searched it up on the Internet and we found out," he says, his voice dropping. "It was cancer. She died when Livvy and I were eight."

Kit reaches out, carefully, and places a warm hand on Ty's arm. He discovers that he doesn't mind, which surprises him.

"The next year, Dad was killed in a raid on illegal experimental manticore breeders. He never saw it coming. Mark was in Beauxbatons - Helen was his chaperone, since she'd moved there with her wife and had already graduated - and Jules had been enrolled in Ilvermorny for two years already. The rest of us… Dru and Tavvy were sent to France to stay with Helen and Aline, and Livvy and I… came here to live with our uncle."

He lies down on the bed, staring at the ceiling with its painted stars. "Sometimes I imagine how my dad died, whether he was caught off guard, whether there were just too many manticores or if the breeders fired an Avada Kedavra by accident. But the dream is always the same." He turns his head away, watching the moonlight illuminate the specks of dust in the air. "My dad goes into a dark room, and the manticores swarm over him, and there's no blood but there's the sound and-" he breaks off. He can't do this anymore. Shaky breaths force themselves in and out of his lungs.

"Your nightmares sound horrible," Kit says.

"They are." The moonlight is bouncing off Kit's hair, colouring it pale yellow. "What was yours?"

"Nothing," he says, embarrassed. "I dreamt that I was on a broom, and the Quaffle was in my hand, and all of a sudden it falls out of my hand and I fall off my broom and break my neck. And everyone sees me falling, but all they do is point and laugh."

Kit has a Quidditch match against Slytherin tomorrow. His maiden match. He'd forgotten. Ty curses himself. How could he forget?

The bed springs back up as Kit edges off. "I should probably get back."

"Wait," says Ty with surprising quickness. Kit spins around, his hand hanging on the doorknob, his mouth half open.

At once, a cloud of heat surges through his face, and he looks down, twisting his hands together. "If you leave now, Filch might catch you," he says by way of explanation, ignoring the fact that if Kit was able to make it here unscathed, he'll survive the trip back to the Hufflepuff dorm.

Apparently Kit decides to ignore it too, because he shrugs easily and comes over. "If you insist, then," he grins, drawing the bedsheet away, and Ty doesn't understand what's going on but it's okay, because Kit is here and that's all that matters in the moment.

"Good night, Kit," he says, pulling the blanket up over his head.

In the dark, he can hear the smile in Kit's voice.

"Good night, Ty."

 _XXXXXXXX_

Ty watches from the stands, rain pouring down around them, gripping his megaphone with white-knuckled hands. Sure, Kit's played Chaser on the Hufflepuff Quidditch team for four years now without sustaining any serious injury - definitely didn't fall off his broom and break his neck like he'd worried at first - but it's always been his part to worry about his best friend, and like they say, old habits die hard.

"Hufflepuff take the Quaffle in the fifty-seventh minute," he says into the megaphone, his eyes locked onto the yellow-clothed figure at the front of the attack formation. "And Herondale bypasses Lynch - he's closing in-"

The megaphone falls from his fingers. In the distance, the sound of pattering raindrops continues.

Out in the field, his eyes trace another object as it falls, with increasing speed, rushing to embrace the hard-packed soil and grass. The red-clothed Beater has her hand over her mouth, gawking at her gruesome handiwork.

Ty vaults over the edge of the commentator's box, ignoring the shouts of curiosity and Professor Gray calling for him to _stop, Tiberius, stop_ as his feet pound on the wooden slats, almost in time with the rain, carrying him down, down, down.

He skids to his knees in the middle of the field. Mud stains the knees of his jeans, but he doesn't notice.

" _Kit,_ " Ty begs, clasping his best friend's shoulders. "Come on."

After a horribly long moment, Kit's gold eyelashes flutter open, and Ty lets out a sob of relief.

"Crap," mutters Kit feebly, rolling onto his back, squelching the mud. "I think I broke something."

Ty's eyes fall to the wand in his hand. He must have tried a Cushioning Charm on the way down. He prays that it worked, for all the good that it did. "Where?"

Kit indicates his left arm, twisted away from him at an awkward angle. Ty's insides churn unpleasantly.

He glances up at the stands. Professor Gray is making her way down to them as fast as she can, her hair pulling loose of her bun, rainwater pasting it to her face and neck.

"We need to get you up," he tells Kit, and the other boy nods, face grim and resigned.

Ty pulls off his now-damp jumper and loops it around Kit's arm in a makeshift sling. He leans over, gets his feet under him.

Acting both on and against his instincts, he rings his arms around Kit's middle, and Kit slings his free arm around Ty's neck, snug against his skin. All of a sudden he's glad for the rain, because that way it'll be harder for Kit to notice his furious blush.

"Ready?" Ty asks, focusing on Professor Gray's approaching silhouette, blurry in the downpour. Kit nods his head once, hard. A few strands of unruly golden hair flicks Ty in the cheek, leaving water tracks in their wake.

Ty counts to three and they stand up, fast, so fast that Kit stumbles into Ty the minute they're upright, and they go down like an oversized domino.

Kit yelps. Panic blooms throughout Ty's entire body, and he tries to sit up. A split second too late he discovers that his arm is pinned under Kit's back, and he topples over again. His head hits something weirdly bumpy and warm.

It takes two seconds for the realisation to hit him, and he wrenches his arm away and sits up, scrambling away from Kit, who eases into a sitting position with his free arm, which had been slung around Ty a few moments ago.

Morrigan save me, he prays, stepping back as Professor Gray hurries onto the scene, supporting Kit with much more expertise, and he reaches for his jumper collar, wanting to pull it up over his face.

His jumper is with Kit. Ty buries his head in his hands instead, crouching on the Quidditch pitch in the rain.

 _XXXXXXXX_

Ty draws the curtain away and sits down in the visitor's chair. "Are you okay?"

Kit's head swivels toward him. He's smirking, which somewhat loosens the painful knot in Ty's stomach. "I'm good."

Ty nods silently and hands him a stack of textbooks. "Homework."

"Morgana," Kit groans, twisting his face into a pretend grimace. He leaves through the books with his hands - despite the fact that his arm was mended and proven fully functional within five minutes, their matron demanded that he remain in the hospital wing for at least two nights. Madam Pomfrey is meticulous as always, though one could probably label it as obsessive.

"How are you feeling?"

"Grand. Carina Wood from Gryffindor Quidditch came during her break. She gave me that bag of Fizzing Whizzbees over there."

Ty looks at the bag. 'I'm Sorry' and 'Get Well Soon' messages have been scrawled on the brown paper bag in permanent marker. "I bet she got taken in by your so-called charms," he says absently, still staring fixedly at the bag.

Out of the corner of his eye, he sees Kit's shrug. "That's to be expected. No one can resist my charms," he says, but for the first time ever it sounds half-hearted, forced, and Ty can't imagine why.

Every time he looks at Kit, that accursed flutter gets ten times worse. He knows he can't just avoid looking at Kit forever - he doesn't want to, either - but…

"I'll be back," he promises, getting up from the chair, trying to ignore the obvious disappointment in Kit's eyes.

Those eyes, goddammit. Those eyes that make him want to tear his hair out in clusters.

"See you," Kit says hollowly, as Ty turns away.

 _XXXXXXXX_

He'd toyed with the idea of bringing a few blueberry muffins from dinner up to the hospital wing, but cancelled it at the last minute. Ty approaches the door of the hospital wing, which stands ajar at the end of the corridor. Voices drift to him through the haze of music filling his ears.

It's Livvy, and Kit.

With a jerk, he yanks the earphones out of his ears and flattens himself against the wall next to the doorway. Nearly rolling his eyes at the sheer ridiculousness of it, he fishes one of Kit's spare Extendable Ears from his pocket (reserved for Kit's snap prank ideas), sends one end across the floor of the hospital wing with a flick of his wand, and places the other end to his ear.

"If you like the boy just _tell_ _him_ ," Livvy says.

Kit's voice trembles, vulnerability palpable in his quavering tone. "Do you think I would be in this situation if it were that simple?" He lets out a sound of raw despair. "Four years, and I still can't say one - _goddamn_ word. I still can't tell him that I - that I'm in love with him, Livvy."

The words hit him like hexes to the head. Kit is in love with someone. Kit has been in love with someone for four years. He didn't know.

"Kit." Ty can't tell if Livvy is exasperated or just sad. "You know you can't keep running from this. It's not Quidditch, you know."

"I'm pretty sure Quidditch involves flying, not running," Kit fires, a spark of the old snark igniting for a too-brief moment.

"Shut up, idiot."

There's a long silence.

Then, "I've known him since Year One," Kit whispers. "And now - I just - what if I break something and he stops talking to me? I'd rather be his friend than nothing at all," he says, his voice barely audible.

There's a rustling sound - someone shifting forward in bedsheets.

Ty wonders just _who_ Kit is talking about, wonders who can make Kit feel this way, and because of it he nearly misses what Livvy says next, the words that flip everything over in an instant.

"I knew it," she says quietly, her voice sympathetic. "It _is_ Ty you're talking about, after all."

He counts himself lucky he wasn't holding anything breakable, because he would almost definitely have dropped it there and then. His hands are shaking so badly that he thinks they might actually hear them vibrating.

There's a sudden shuffle from inside the hospital wing. "How did you-"

"It was rather obvious," Livvy says gently. "You don't have a lot of serious friends, and almost all of them are in different levels. Also you only ever go around with one person. It doesn't take a genius to figure it out."

Kit makes a choked sound. Ty lets out a shaky breath.

Just then, the chair in the hospital wing screeches across the floor.

"What in the name of Morrigan-" Livvy's voice is tinged with horror.

The Extendable Ear flies out of Ty's hand, and he looks down just in time to see the end whip through the crack in the door.

He doesn't think. He can't. He just runs.

 _XXXXXXXX_

Kit can't think. He just sits in the bed, numb as Livvy weighs the Extendable Ear in her hand. Her blue-green eyes peer at him, wide with worry.

He just looks at her. He doesn't say a word. What is there to say?

She glances back at the door, which hangs slightly open. Then back at him.

"Mercy Lewis. Kit..." Livvy's voice is full of concern. Too much. It makes him feel exposed, and he doesn't like it.

"I'll see you tomorrow," he says tonelessly, pressing his forehead into the heels of his hands. "You should probably get back to Gryffindor Tower anyway. It's getting late."

She stands there, her lips open, like there are a thousand words she wants to say and not enough time. Then her teeth clack together as she closes her mouth.

"It's just-" Livvy hesitates. Looks down at the object in her hand. And sighs. "Good night, Kit," she says finally.

"Good night," he says. Her braids swing behind her as she walks, the hospital wing door swinging shut dully behind her.

 _XXXXXXXX_

When he walks to the Great Hall for breakfast the next day, Ty isn't there. Well, not at their usual spot, anyway.

Over at the Gryffindor table, Livvy crunches into her toast in pointed quietude. Her eyes find his, and she shrugs, as if saying, _What? I didn't tell him anything._

He tilts his head, jerking his eyes sideways in a query. _Have you seen him?_

Livvy pauses, then shakes her head. Her lips are pressed into a tight line.

Then her eyes flick behind him, and a hand closes vice-like around his wrist, dragging him away from the Hall.

He opens his mouth to protest, but Ty's already letting go of him, stepping backwards, pulling his earphones down to dangle over his shoulder.

"I went to the hospital wing just now," he says, grey eyes slightly accusing. "You didn't tell me you were getting out today."

He catches himself staring just in time, and schools his features into a careless smile, something he's gotten good at over the years. "Sorry," he grins, marvelling at how fake and real it is. "Must have slipped my mind."

Ty's eyes scan his, microscope-like. "Hm." He takes one step forward, and Kit automatically moves back. He notices the movement and takes in an almost imperceptible breath, his gaze shifting downward.

Irrational panic slams into Kit. Does he -

"Has anything else slipped your mind lately?" he asks, folding his arms before him. "Anything else you _forgot_ to _tell_ me, _Christopher?_ "

Is he imagining it, or is that a note of meaningful questioning in his voice?

Before Kit can reply, Ty starts to speak again. "You know-" he says, stepping forward again, "you-" he takes another step, "could have _saved_ us-" he takes a third - they're one foot apart now - "a lot of collective _agony-_ " one more step and he's standing close enough for Kit to - "if you'd just said _something_." His eyes stare into Kit's, grey as the sky.

 _Oh, sweet Paracelsus._

Kit bites his lip. Ty follows the movement with his eyes, wavering. "Said something about what?" he asks, trying to sound unconcerned and failing spectacularly.

Ty sighs, clearly steeling himself to do something he doesn't want to. "The Extendable Ear in the hospital wing," he says in a rush, eyes running to a spot between the wall and the floor. "It was mine."

The words hang in the air between them for a long while, like too-heavy balloons.

"You idiot," says Ty, his eyes shining, his smile too wide, and he leans in at the same time that Kit does, which means it happened two times faster that they were anticipating, but Ty's hands still end up tangled in the hair at the back of Kit's head, and he can still taste that god-awful black coffee and pancakes with extra maple syrup that Ty had for breakfast and there are waves of _feeling_ flowing everywhere through his body, white-hot like lightning, and it's exhilarating and frightening and he loves it.

Ty's forehead is against Kit's when the kiss ends, and he begins to laugh slowly as they break apart for breath.

"You idiot," he says again, his hands sliding down to rest against Kit's neck. "You _goddamned_ idiot, Kit Herondale. You could have just asked me out first Hogsmeade weekend."

Kit smiles wryly. "Well, duh," he says. "I'm _your_ idiot, remember?" he adds, and Ty looks up at him in surprise, closer than he ever imagined.

"Yes," he replies finally, that beautiful smile appearing again. "Yes, you are," he says, his eyes closing as he leans in again.

 _XXXXXXXX_

 _The door of the wand shop swings closed behind the boy, but Kit can't help but continue to stare at the spot where he disappeared. He's never seen anyone with grey eyes as alive as those, nor hair that thoroughly black, but he can't find anything undesirable about it, except for the fact that it's lodged in his brain like a nail hammered into wood, and he can't get it out._

" _Mister Herondale," says Ollivander, beckoning. "Your master hand, if you please."_

 _Kit holds up his right hand. The tape measure floats up from the floor where it fell after Ollivander came back with the wands for the other boy._

 _He watches Ollivander's slight figure flitting about the shelves, head turning once in a while as he mutters to himself. The man comes down with another pile of boxes, almost on par with the pile he took down for the other boy._

 _He realises that the boy has gotten stuck in his head after barely meeting him for less than two minutes, and he wonders at it as Ollivander opens the first wand box._

" _Alright then," he says. "Alder and phoenix feather, thirteen and a half inches, unyielding."_

 _Kit reaches for it, but his fingers only graze the smooth wood before Ollivander retracts it. "No, not this one," he murmurs, grabbing a second box. "Try this, red oak and dragon heartstring, just over twelve inches, slightly brittle."_

 _Again he holds it, and again Ollivander pulls the wand away, and again the stack of rejected wands grows. Finally he retrieves one more wand and presents it in his slim hands._

" _This one, then. Apple wood and unicorn hair, twelve and a quarter inches, considerably steadfast."_

 _He grasps it, and immediately sparks of joyful blue and gold explode from the tip. Kit inhales, feeling the wand humming in his hand._

 _Ollivander's eyes have gone wide. "You," he says, thoughtfully. "You will be a formidable adversary, Christopher Herondale."_

 _He blinks, confused. Ollivander smiles knowingly, his eyes moving to the door._

 _He stands aside, examining his new wand, as Tessa pays the old wandmaker, chatting politely. She turns back to Kit, beckoning for him to come, and he does._

" _Come on, Kit," she says._

 _He goes with her, but all the while his mind stays in the wand shop, the image of dark hair and grey eyes branded on the inside of his eyes._

 _Tiberius Blackthorn, huh?_

 _He smiles._

 _XXXXXXXX_

Looking back, the day didn't play out the way they thought it would, but as it turns out, it wasn't too bad, was it?

 ** _XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX_**

REVIEW, REVIEW, REVIEW~~ thank yOU


End file.
